OWTU to pray in front PM’s residence

UPDATE:

DECLARING that oil workers’ jobs were on the line, OWTU president general Ancel Roget has called for all Petrotrin workers to assemble at the Prime Minister’s official residence at La Fantasie, St Ann’s on August 26 where they will “bruise” their knees in prayer for the company and the nation.

“We going to kneel down and pray in La Fantasie, we going to pray for Petrotrin, we are going to pray for the jobs of the workers, we are going to pray for Trinidad and Tobago, we are going to pray for God to give the correct people to run Petrotrin, we are going to pray for the right thing to happen to those who are against us.

“We are going to bruise our knees on Saturday the 26 of August. Put your house in order, it is not a working day, nobody could discipline you, nobody could say you walk off the job, you have the power in your hands.   We going to give him an early parang.”
Roget made the announcement during a mass mobilisation meeting at the Pointe-a-Pierre roundabout, Marabella on Monday night.

The meeting, which was shifted from the morning to the late afternoon, attracted hundreds of workers from across the sprawling oil company’s various departments including the Pointe-a-Pierre branch, Santa Flora, Penal/ Barrackpore and Forest Reserve divisions and Trinmar Marine division.

The workers were all dressed in the union’s blue t-shirts with several carrying placards as they marched in a semi-circle in front of the main gates leading to Petrotrin’s administration building.
And after singing a medley of union songs, Roget, in typical fighting mood, said the current board of directors had one plan for the ailing company and that was to send the workers home.
“We going to Puerto de Espana, and as we go to Port of Spain, nowhere else, nothing else must be important to you comrades. Absolutely nothing else but one thing on your mind, your job. We can’t allow them to continue because there will be no Petrotrin and if there is no Petrotrin, you will not have a job.

“And if you don’t have a job, you don’t have a family, and if you don’t have a family, you don’t have a community and then you have more crime and mayhem and disorder in society and therefore it is our responsibility to stop them in their tracks.”

He said workers were also voters and the time would come when their votes would be wanted by those same people who were looking to downsize the company and then sell it.
“We are at a point where this company is on the brink of disaster and two, or three or four steps further and it will go over the precipice.”

He said the board had refused to implement the union’s plan to turn around the company’s operations saying this plan would have witnessed an increase in the production of local crude as well as a tightening up of its operations.
Roget also reminded workers that they were expected to participate in the September 7 day of rest and reflection.

ORIGINAL STORY:

Declaring the jobs of oil workers were on the line, OWTU president general Ancel Roget has called for all Petrotrin workers to assemble at the Prime Minister’s official residence at La Fantasie, St Ann’s on August 26, when they will “bruise their knees" in prayer for the company and the nation.

“We going to kneel down and pray in La Fantasie, we going to pray for Petrotrin, we are going to pray for the jobs of the workers, we are going to pray for TT, we are going to pray for God to give the correct people to run Petrotrin, we are going to pray for the right thing to happen to those who are against us.

We are going to bruise our knees on Sunday, August 26. Put your house in order. It is not a working day, nobody could discipline you, nobody could say you walk off the job, you have the power in your hands.

"We going to give him an early parang.”

Roget made the announcement during a mass mobilisation meeting at the Pointe-a-Pierre roundabout, Marabella, on Monday night.